It could be as simple as 95% of people expected some sort of reward for blogging. This could be ads from traffic, comments saying how smart you are or just tons of hits to stroke your ego. I have a half dozen blogs for different things, my favorite is this one where I post my crazy ideas so I stop myself from actually implementing them and can come back to them later if I still like the idea a week/month later http:/…
Why are 95% of blogs abandoned?
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Re: Why are 95% of blogs abandoned?
#32It could be as simple as 95% of people expected some sort of reward for blogging. This could be ads from traffic, comments saying how smart you are or just tons of hits to stroke your ego. I have a half dozen blogs for different things, my favorite is this one where I post my crazy ideas so I stop myself from actually implementing them and can come back to them later if I still like the idea a week/month later http:/…
Re: Why are 95% of blogs abandoned?
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
> there are all sorts of benefits to blogging besides making original contributions to exposition of a topic. And even though I realize this, I still get stuck a lot on the non-originality thing. Part of the problem is that many people see blogging as a teaching tool alone. More often than not, it's a conversation starter too, and the blogger ends up learning a great deal of new information in the process. And even i…
Really like the insight you made about conversation starting. The problem is that most people won't believe they can actually attract the audience needed to create a fertile conversation on their blog.
Re: Why are 95% of blogs abandoned?
#34I like this idea, I've had a thing or two I wanted to write on, but didn't want to setup a blog. I've actually thought of building something similar myself. So, excited about this website, I clicked on "Write a post". Oh, you want to tie to my twitter account. Nevermind.
Hahaha, no.
Re: Why are 95% of blogs abandoned?
#35Re: Why are 95% of blogs abandoned?
#361) Unrealistic Expectations. Most people have no idea what "success" really looks like for a blog. They assume that, if six months have gone by and they're not getting 100,000+ followers, they've failed. Another unrealistic expectation is what I'd call an overly generous self-assessment: the blogger in question overestimates how much gas he has in the tank on a particular topic. He may get a few great ideas in his head one day, then build a blog around them, then find himself struggling for material on the third day.
2) Lack of Patience. Building a successful following is rarely an overnight journey. Some blogs take years to find their footing, and years more to find their audiences.
3) Insufficient or Non-Strategic Marketing. As folks in the startup world are well aware, you really need to think outside the box -- and occasionally go totally wild -- to get attention in today's crowded marketplace of ideas. You've also got to be clever about building credibility, connections to the right influencers, and paths outward from those influencers to broader audiences. By contrast, most hobby-bloggers take a "write it and they will come" approach -- hoping naively that people will flock to their blogs as if called to them by magic. Or they'll blast notices out to all their friends and family, rather than taking a careful inventory of who might actually be interested, who might be very interested, and who might be so interested that she'll tell her friends (or, conversely, who might not give a flying you-know-what). It's counterintuitive to think that starting out by telling fewer people is preferable to shotgunning everyone you know. But the shotgun approach seldom works. Start surgically.
As it turns out, probably 90% of the work of building a successful blog takes place outside of the blog. Writing great content is the easy part (and it's not easy!); getting folks to notice is the hard part.
Re: Why are 95% of blogs abandoned?
#37It could be as simple as 95% of people expected some sort of reward for blogging. This could be ads from traffic, comments saying how smart you are or just tons of hits to stroke your ego. I have a half dozen blogs for different things, my favorite is this one where I post my crazy ideas so I stop myself from actually implementing them and can come back to them later if I still like the idea a week/month later http:/…
Ha! That blog is an awesome idea. So may ideas left to die (or...live on?) - I can completely relate...believe me. If you ever wanted guest contributors to THAT, I think there are probably a few others who can relate who read HN.
Re: Why are 95% of blogs abandoned?
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh ya. Here's another blog without any strings attached: http://pastebin.com
but ... but it has no comments!!
postery should integrate pastebin as a backend! And then usenet. Or email.
Re: Why are 95% of blogs abandoned?
#39It could be as simple as 95% of people expected some sort of reward for blogging. This could be ads from traffic, comments saying how smart you are or just tons of hits to stroke your ego. I have a half dozen blogs for different things, my favorite is this one where I post my crazy ideas so I stop myself from actually implementing them and can come back to them later if I still like the idea a week/month later http:/…
i am sure 95% of school time diaries were also abandoned.. i abandoned mine at primary school.
Blogs and diaries are a great example of what may be a bigger trend: people often begin projects with high hopes, but due to a lack of a clear vision and/or an overestimation of their long-term motivation, it fizzles.
Re: Why are 95% of blogs abandoned?
#40Your tool combined with my wondering led to this trolltacular literary masterpiece. http://www.postary.com/twitter/Detrus/abandoning-a-post